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This
is the section of the installation based on my speech in Istanbul about
the other aspect of my theory in my dissertation. the background image
represents the Borusan Art Enter; one can see into it in a form which is
how they represented Superman's X-Ray
vision in the 60s. In that you see me talking about my
rewrite/misprision of Harold Bloom's theory of Agon and misprision. I
find his "struggle" theory correct, but replace his Oedipus with a
discussion of Jacob, who crosses the Jabbok River to wrestle with God
(not an angel in the Bible, that is an "official" rewrite, the original
is clearly in the Bible and is God). And more so, then, replace the
oedipal aspect with a version I find healthier, a "call and response"
version based in African-American aesthetics. And in particular with
Eshu, the spirit of the crossroads, the trickster spirit, whose image in
the painting I have already shown here. There is a painting of hands
arguing, of Jacob, and of George Herriman (the artist of Krazy Kat,
another influence of mine), as well as of Eshu.

The Chapter is here: http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/dissertation/Mark_Staff_Brandl_CHAPTER_SEVEN_Agon.pdf

11 April 2013

Another
detail of my installation, the walk-in comic-painting-installation
exhibition. The second section of the homages wall. Store window to
the left with homages to Gene Colan and my Dad. Here billboards, comics,
painting,
pets. Thinking. The back wall, center to right. It has the cat Toby
watching me think. I am in my own thought balloon (life-sized image). To
the right is a billboard, like the very large ones along the highwas
earlier in the US. On it is a comic of two pages.
Above that are two other billboards, the full one bearing my hand with
the brush "bravura-Zorro style" again. On the comic and billboard is a
sequence (thus clearly a comic) of top left autumn (with a sign and leaves
from Chicago US and Appenzellerland in Switzerland). Then lower left
Gina the dog walks in, just her head at first. Then she walks through
the scene, second orange image she is leaving. Right page: top, She is
almost gone just her tail as an angel-wing-like echo of the Gabriel had
in the big painting elsewhere. Last panel, bottom right, she is gone.
Perhaps a loop. Definitely a memento mori (Latin 'remember that you too
will die'), for Dad, Gene Colan, Toby, Grisu, Gina, Buddie and all of us. I am in my typical clothing, but in the pose of Velázquez in Las Meninas.

10 April 2013

A
detail of the back wall of the installation. I incorporated the back
door and window making them into a representation of a store window, as
part of that sections homage to past influences (with a large part of
'memento mori'), as my Dad Earl was also
a display man /(visual merchandising/polydesigner as they are now
called), as well as sign painter. Above the window is a painting of Gene Colan, my hero, and to the left is Clifford Meth, a great author and Gene fan, who also stands for authors I have worked with like Daniel Ammann, Peter Benno Gillis
and so on. To the right is a smaller portrait of gene, which he saw
before his death. On the door is a display tech image with two small
3-stone lithos on it. To the right of this area is the huge sequence
with my life-sized self-portrait and all. Coming soon! The panorama of the whole painting-installation is here: http://www.markstaffbrandl.com/jedlitschka%20panorama.html